Jenna Ortega-Martin Freeman Movie ‘Miller’s Girl’ To World Premiere At Palm Springs Film Festival Ahead Of January Release; See First-Look Photo

Patrick Hipes
·2 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: Jade Halley Bartlett’s Miller’s Girl starring Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman will make its world premiere at the 2024 Palm Springs Film Festival before it hits theaters next month.

Lionsgate and Point Grey Pictures are behind the movie, which marks the feature writing and directing debut for Bartlett, who wrote the original play in 2011 and adapted it into a screenplay that landed on the 2016 Black List. Miller’s Girl will premiere at the festival January 11 and land in cinemas beginning Friday, January 26.

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Ortega, Freeman and Bartlett are set to attend the Palm Springs screening at the festival, which runs January 4-15. They will be a part of the fest’s Talking Pictures program that features post-screening Q&As with cast and creatives.

The film centers on the unraveling of a complex connection between lonely intellectuals: a failed writer named Jonathan Miller (Freeman) and his remarkable student Cairo Sweet (Ortega). When a creative writing assignment prompts uncomfortable realities, both realize they’ve blurred lines beyond the academic. The pic is about the imminent, inexorable attraction between characters who become both hero and villain in each other’s stories.

Bashir Salahuddin, Gideon Adlon and Dagmara Domińczyk also star. Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Josh Fagen and Mary-Margaret Kunze are producing. Freeman is an executive producer.

Others confirmed for PSIFF’s Talking Pictures program to date include Greta Gerwig with Barbie, Jeffrey Wright with American Fiction, Carey Mulligan with Maestro, Colman Domingo with Rustin, Danielle Brooks, Taraji P. Henson and Blitz Bazawule with The Color Purple, Da’Vine Joy Randolph with The Holdovers and Eric Roth with Killers of the Flower Moon.

Gerwig, Mulligan, Domingo, Brooks, Randolph and Killers of the Flower Moon have already been announced as recipients of Palm Springs awards to be presented on the festival’s opening night January 4.

Earlier this month, Deadline scooped that Ortega’s hit Netflix series Wednesday would begin shooting in late April in Ireland, after Season 1 was shot in Romania. That first season ranks as Netflix’s most popular series of all time with 252.1 million views to date.

On the film front, Ortega recently confirmed that the Wednesday schedule means she won’t be able to return for the next installment of Scream, after she helped Scream VI this year to the horror franchise’s best opening grosses ever at $44.4 million in the U.S.

Ortega is next up opposite Ben Foster, Toby Wallace and Tommy Lee Jones in Brian Helgeland’s crime thriller Finestkind, which has its world premiere Tuesday. She also has Beetlejuice 2 in the works for a September 2024 launch.

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